Friday, January 29, 2010

Mabo Tofu with Turkey and Broccoli


In Hawaii, where I've lived for a total of 7 years, this is a normal dish, but since it involves a sauce from a box covered in Chinese writing, and TOFU, it's a pretty scary sounding dish! However, it's very adaptable, and we love it. We left Hawaii almost 2 years ago, and I used up my stockpile of ingredients in our first 6 months here. Our local grocery store, Safeway finally started carrying the sauce, so now I'm so excited that we got to eat this again that I decided it has to be my first post. Here goes:

Ingredients:
sesame oil
Ground chicken or turkey, (optional)
1 block of tofu. Silken, extra firm is best.
bag of frozen broccoli or mixed vegetables or whatever you want (optional)
House Mabo Tofu Sauce, at least 2 packages
sweet chili sauce (options)
Rice



1. start cooking the rice
2. brown ground poultry, if you want to use oil, sesame oil is good.
3. cut tofu into bite sized cubes
4. when poultry is cooked, mix in tofu cubes, sauces, and broccoli.

















5. cover, continue to cook, stirring occasionally until it is all warm enough to eat.



6. serve over rice.

I was not impressed by the tofu I used this time. It was not silken like I usually use. use the silken kind in the aseptic (shelf-stable) package. The price on that webpage I linked to is insane. Find it in your local store or make the trip to an Asian grocery store. You'll definitely save money!

ARRGH!! I was so excited about eating it that after I carefully plated it for the photo, I forgot about taking a serving picture and just ate it! Oh well, I'm sure we'll eat it again soon!!

I'd like to thank our friend Sarah Richardson for introducing us to this dish!

Yikes! After finding the ingredients online for this, it looks like an expensive dish, but in Hawaii, the ingredients are super cheap and available at any wal-mart. I swear the House Mabo Sauce was $1/package. Maybe I am wrong. It was $3.59 here. I remember because I was shocked that it cost so much more here! I guess that's the price to bring Paradise to Nebraska in the dead of winter.

3 comments:

***Sharon*** said...

This is exactly how I make it too! (Minus the broccoli - which I will try adding next time!) I make it probably once a week!

Let me know if you want me to mail you some. I haven't seen it for $1.00/pkg anywhere (if you remember where please tell me!) I think I pay about $2.50? I never pay attention because I buy it no matter what!) :)

***Sharon*** said...

Update! I made some mabo yesterday (as I do every week!) and added some broccoli like you do. Perfect. Don't know why I didn't do it before!

I took notice this time around and found the mabo box at commissary for $2.30 a box. HOWEVER!!! I DO remember buying it for $1.00/box at the 99 cent Marukai store.....does that store still exist? The one across from Ward Warehouse? If so I'll hook you up! ;)

PegHead said...

no worries on the hook up. I'm sending Hubby to the commissary (there) in May. Thanks for the price check! Glad you like broccoli. froze peas/carrots are also a nice change.

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